Boy meets girl - Ken Gibbs

Where did the cairn go ?

Southern Africa while I was going through university, was highly separated. Males from females; whites from non-whites; Boers from the English; heterosexual from anything else; Protestants from Catholics, and even the Dutch Reformed Church split into two; all other religions seemed to have been marginalised and if there were more sub-divisions possible, they were immediately implemented.

University provided some respite from all this fragmentation, but if it didn’t follow government dogma, it was designated as illegal. The most obvious deviation from government dogma was that the campus had many, many female students who saw themselves as equal to their male counterparts.

For a young male coming from a family that only had sons, this required considerable mental readjustment which was not helped by the civil engineering faculty having no women students and, from memory, no female lecturers either. It was definitely an Alpha-dominated environment. How to reconcile the university at large with our faculty took some mental gymnastics, and two hats. You wore a male hat in the faculty and a normal hat when elsewhere on campus, switching as necessary.

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Surprisingly, the university didn’t deal with engineering ethics which was probably just as well because the engineers would never have been able to spell some of the esoteric terms that the study of ethics would have required. Although I was unaware of it at the time, my engineering specialisation was to be in public health – and during my degree course, there were only three lectures on the subject in the whole four-year course.

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In common with most universities, Cape Town had many left leaning students which didn’t please the government of the day that required everyone to conform to their own very right wing ‘standards’. Being of non-South African stock myself, I felt inclined not to become involved but it was difficult to see what was going on in South African society and not feel considerable sympathy for those who were protesting. Besides, my father was involved in politics in the then Southern Rhodesia and if I had joined the South African university protesters, it could well have embarrassed him.

An event changed my thinking; as I received a squash ball straight into an eye three days before my final exams which left me in hospital, double bandaged and not allowed to move for fear of precipitating a detached retina. I was told that I was fortunate as I was very fit at the time, and it was this fitness that would allow for relatively quick recuperation of the eye.

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Just before these events, I noticed the Head of the Women’s Residence who was a bit of an enigma. Tall and statuesque, she happened to be dating the Head of the Men’s Residence, who happened to be a friend of mine, so I kept a respectful distance from her. After I landed in hospital, she was prevailed upon to visit me.

She came at a time that I had been given a youngster to hold on to as he was inclined to wander even though he was also double bandaged. He and I didn’t share a common language, so I told him about the story of Peter Rabbit which kept him interested though he didn’t understand a single word of what I was saying. In the middle of this, who should come into the ward, unannounced and unnoticed, but the Head of the Women’s Residence. Later, she told me that she was impressed by my story-telling ability but that I probably should read Peter Rabbit again as I had – perhaps – mixed up some of the facts. Or all of them. Oh, well, you can’t win them all. . . . .

Some time later, as was the custom, the Men’s Residence Committee took the Women’s Residence Committee to a show – it was expected of them at least once per year. In fact, the show this time was the Circus. A couple of the women were obliged to be back by 11pm, so one of the men drove them back early. This left six people behind with a car into which only five would fit. They were, after all, students and felt that owning a large and expensive car was not yet a necessity. The question was, how to fit six into the space of five? Try as they might they couldn’t – that was till Mary, the Head of the Women’s Residence, suggested that she would travel on the roof rack if the driver didn’t do anything silly. So it was that Mary in full evening dress was hoisted on to the roof rack where she sat, elegantly.

Naturally, ‘top-deck-travel’ was not a familiar sight in Cape Town at that time, so their progress was marked by shouts and wolf whistles until they reached a roundabout where there was a policeman on point duty. He stopped the car and said something along the lines of, “Ere in South Efrika, we all sit inside the blerry car!” This comment had come as he had seen that the licence plate was from Southern Rhodesia. Accordingly, Mary was helped down and tried to find space on the three laps in the back but the car was too small even for that, so she suggested that if both back windows were rolled down, and she was fed in from the one side, she could ‘fit’ nicely with head out one window and feet out the other. They tried it and before the policeman could say ‘No !’, they set off back to their respective residences. This was someone I thought was good to know. Striking and quick witted. . . .

A few months later, I was travelling back to the university to complete my degree and requested a bed for one night en route from Mary’s parents, who lived on the east coast of South Africa. They were delighted to receive me and I ended up staying for three nights having been wined and dined most handsomely.

I never did discover what it was that her parents saw in me – but it was memorable and it was the beginning of a courtship. I think. Whatever the case, Mary decided a few months later that she had better check on me without her parents in the vicinity, so she drove all the way to Cape Town to do so, which was around 1,200 km or a 12 hour drive. On arrival, she complained that her car was not working very well – a challenge to an engineer? So I made a few basic checks and found the engine was starved of petrol, which was relatively easy to correct. Mary was impressed and thought that maybe, just maybe, having a resident engineer at home would be a good idea. We became engaged with the path of true love somewhat polluted by oily rags, car maintenance tools and the constant smell of petrol. Come to think of it, nothing much has changed since then.

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